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nemu*nemu is cute*cute local manga
by PAULA BENDER
Sun Correspondent
Archived May 2007 article
Remember the name nemu*nemu. Visit the website www.nemu-nemu.com and experience the sweetness of a web comic that examines the lives of two darling little girls and their sassy puppies. And now nemu*nemu volume 1, a compilation of its first 12 chapters, is available through its website and via online bookstores. The brainchild of Scott Yoshinaga and Audra Furuichi, the manga strip follows along as the two elementary school girls and their stuffed dogs - who can walk and talk on their own - partake in exciting adventures. The girls learn about life as the dogs explore the world of people. It's so cute and so refreshing that I suspect Hello Kitty will have to make some room on retail shelves, once nemu*nemu catches on with little girls and big girls everywhere.
"There's some local Hawaiian style culture thrown into the strip," Furuichi said. "Things I grew up with, like the word 'botcha,' are used in part of a story arc to help spread a little bit of local culture and humor."
Adds Yoshinaga about the minor characters in the webstrip, "Henshin Rider is our take on the Kikaida and Kamen Rider phenomenon that happened here in the '70s. The hero is the idol of one of the characters and she is totally obsessed with him, much like I was with Kikaida when I was growing up."
Manga is the Japanese word for printed cartoons or comics. Anime is animated manga. That's probably way too simplistic for serious manga and anime fans in Hawaii and beyond, which number into the millions. According to Yoshinaga and Furuichi, who attended Kawaii-Kon at the Hawaii Convention Center last month, anime and manga have huge followings in Hawaii and on the Mainland.
"On the Mainland, some of the biggest events are in Los Angeles and in Baltimore where close to 10,000 people attend," Yoshinaga said.
Both University of Hawaii-Manoa graduates, Yoshinaga and Furuichi didn't really connect until they each spent time on the Mainland, and in Furuichi's case, in Japan, before returning to the islands to get serious about their work. Furuichi, who is a St. Andrew's Priory graduate and who now works at a hectic pace at the Hawaii State Legislature, said she wanted to return to Hawaii to build up the substance of her resume. She had already spent time in Japan teaching at an English-speaking school, and in California where she worked as a colorist for Marvel and Antarctic Press, and as a translation editor for Studio ICE/Ice Kunion.
"The hours for a colorist are crazy with short deadlines," Furuichi said. "I might get something like 24 pages in a week or so. For me it got hard working for people, doing a lot of jobs, being on someone else's time schedule. I really became nocturnal at that point. I moved back to Hawaii to get back into the work scheme."
Yoshinaga, a graduate of Hawaii Baptist Academy, is the elementary technical coordinator at Mid-Pacific Institute, has held a number of high-tech positions in Hawaii, and can even be credited for designing hip and fascinating font types such as "Grunge" and "Crud."
The cuddly pair of Furuichi and Yoshinaga met while serving as mentors teaching the basics of manga to students from elementary school to college and beyond. The opportunity just might have been the catalyst for nemu*nemu.
"Our primary message is that everybody was young once, but as adults, we forget," Yoshinaga said. "This strip looks at life through a child's eyes, or through the eyes of a stuffed animal, and how they see the world in a different perspective. It's not all bad, but it's interesting and it's fun in different ways."
Furuichi added, "We want people to look at life with fresh eyes, to see things as our characters see them."
The manga couple hopes their book inspires other artists of all ages to start drawing and sharing their stories with the world.
"In this day and age, anyone can draw comics," Furuichi said. "With the computers and the Internet, the world is literally at your fingertips - there's nothing to stop an aspiring artist from putting themselves out there for the world to see. If we can do it, you can, too!"
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